US made a big mistake not pushing for Article 140: former US official

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - The Americans made a "big mistake" in not pushing for article 140 of Iraq's 2005 constitution to be implemented back in 2004, measures designed to resolve the issue of Iraq's disputed territories, a former US diplomat in Iraq and former ambassador to Syria told Rudaw in an interview in late December.

“I think the Americans, myself included, we made a big mistake in 2004 and 2005 in not pushing harder for implementation of article 140. I am not saying it was an American problem to resolve, it is an Iraqi problem to resolve, but we had influence and we did not use it,” Robert Ford told Rudaw’s Bestoon Khalid in an interview conducted on Thursday.

Ford served as a Political Counselor to the US Embassy in Baghdad between 2004 and 2006, and later served as the US ambassador to Syria between 2011 and 2014.

Ford added that Iraq and its government are currently facing a significant political test in the formation of the next government, following parliamentary elections in October.

“If the government says it will disarm all the militias immediately, it is a big problem,” he said, adding that “there is a real possibility that you would have fighting in some places.”

Ford noted that Iraqi political leaders “negotiate very hard deals” and that the negotiations to form the next government “is going to take a long time”.

Article 140 of the Iraqi Constitution calls for dispute over areas in the provinces of Diyala, Kirkuk, Nineveh, and Salahaddin to be resolved. It includes measures aimed at rectifying Arabization policies implemented under the rule of Saddam Hussein.

The dispute was meant to be settled no later than 2007, through a referendum for residents of the territory to decide whether it should fall under the control of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) or remain tied to federal Iraq.

But the article was never implemented amid disputes between the KRG and the Iraqi government, with Baghdad fearful that KRG control of oil-rich Kirkuk would make a Kurdish state more viable.

Security gaps between different security forces in the area have contributed to the deaths of over 350 people in Islamic State (ISIS) attacks in the disputed territories in the first 11 months of 2021, according to data from the Peshmerga ministry.